Tag Archive | compassion

Gratitude for Science

Sep11

“The Devil’s beating his wife,” the Colonel used to say when rain fell during sunshine. There was a brief moment this morning when that happened. It was beautiful, and I reflected on the phrase, such an innocent reference to domestic violence. Normalizing words, phrases, and ideas softens their impact and can lead to complacency.

Last night’s rich sunset portended today’s rain.

There are holes in the narrative of yesterday’s assassination in Utah. American Muckrakers outlines provocative elements that suggest a false flag, and it’s sickening to read and makes a lot of sense. Question the prevailing narrative on this one, and question mainstream and liberal media who are reporting spurious details as fact.

And this evening’s sunset continues the day’s pattern of intermittent rain and sunshine.

Before I read that, though, I was pondering with great sadness how Republicans react with horror and even compassion when it’s one of their own who is shot: But where were they on June 14 when Minnesota state representative Melissa Hortman was assassinated, her husband and their dog killed also, in their home, and two other Democrats injured? Why wasn’t the flag ordered half staff nationwide for her? Where was the federal outrage when the CDC campus was shot up last month?

Where is the federal compassion and call for justice for the 39 murders in US school shootings so far this year? Where is the national coverage of yesterday’s school shooting in Colorado? Locally, and quite timely, the Paonia Players are taking the stage as part of a nationwide creative endeavor to speak out against gun violence. Enough: Plays to End Gun Violence takes place in more than fifty communities on October 6, and in Paonia, Colorado at the Blue Sage Center for the Arts.

Gun violence is a problem, but a bigger problem for me is that I can identify with the hateful people. I don’t much care that a rightwing mouthpiece was assassinated as a result of the gun culture his tribe venerates. My sympathy falters when I feel someone has brought their suffering on themself. And that’s a failure inside me, of the human I want to be. And a very scary world view.

This is why I practice. And pausing, waiting for more information, allows my heart to remain open, to soften, to hold it all, including the possibility that yesterday saw one of the most nefarious double reverse false flag psy op killings ever on US soil. Was Charlie Kirk killed by a bumbling amateur who strew evidence all over the scene, or by a highly skilled, well-paid and protected, professional sniper? All I’m saying is, question the narrative.

At the intersection of gun violence and science, this conversation between Dr. Eric Topol and Dr. Peter Hotez, both renowned scientist-physicians, explores the scope, the financial motivation, and the ramifications of the staggering ignorance behind an organized assault on global health and world peace by the anti-science movement in the US. Dr. Hotez himself receives frequent death threats. Between the Kirk assassination and the CDC attack, I’m sure he’s more concerned than ever about his numerous upcoming public and university talks.

I’m grateful my worst woe right now is the ongoing dental drama. Yesterday the dentist finally agreed to x-ray my whole mouth. “The good news is there’s no infection,” she said. I waited for the bad news, but there wasn’t any. Just that for whatever reasons, I’ve suffered adverse consequences from a routine procedure. I’m still not quite satisfied with the investigation, but was enthralled with the 3D x-ray. The problematic crowns are winking bright white in the image.

And wrapping up with gratitude for science, this photo essay in The Atlantic reminds us of the scourge of polio that was eradicated in the US when I was ten. When and where did I get my polio vaccine? This is one of those moments when I miss my mother to tears, unable to ask her. I remember the smallpox vaccine because it left a scar on my shoulder for decades, but could not recall the polio vaccine until I reached the last photo in the essay (oh yes, now I remember: just a cube full of sugar helps the medicine go down – I probably asked for seconds).

Original caption: “This little girl swallows a lump of sugar served in a paper cup, and receives a few drops of the Sabin oral vaccine and protection against polio, on July 18, 1962, in Atlanta, Georgia. Scientists say the dread crippler could be wiped out eventually if everyone took the vaccine, but comparatively few people are taking it, except in communities which have had threatened epidemics or have been put on crash programs.”

As I was working on this post, the sky got even more spectacular. I missed a giant lightning strike by a split second, then realized I could pull images from video so I set the phone in the tripod (hello, science? the phone camera, I mean!) and filmed ten minutes of celestial glory.

I was only sad that I couldn’t be everywhere at once…
And then the color left the sky and that particular cell moved on east over the mountains. But long after dark the rain continues to come in waves and lightning to brighten the night.

Patience and Compassion

Jul15
Before sunrise the smoke stayed low and south.

“Indeed, I see heartbreak as the most proportional response to the state of the world – to say I love you is to say my heart breaks for you, and this sentiment resonates within all things, bringing a clarity to both the world before us and the world beyond the veil. Sorrow becomes a way of life, part laughter, part tears, with very little space between. It is a way of conducting oneself in the world, of loving it, of worshipping it.”

Nick Cave, Red Hand Files #331

But by the time I wrestled myself out of bed it had begun to disperse northward.

I’m ever more grateful for connecting with Ted Leach, and for his eminently readable daily blog. Today he shared a link to this essay, You Can’t Love Jesus and Hate Immigrants, which sprung the first tears of the day just after noon.

More tears bubbled up reading a story on Daily Good about a woman rescuing cats from flood debris along the Guadalupe River. I chose to spend some work time reading about humans doing wonderful things, and weeping with awe.

A friend texted midafternoon from northwest across the valley to see if I was ok, because from his perspective it looked like Crawford was enveloped in heavy smoke. I drove up to get the mail to get a wider view myself, just to be sure, and sent him a picture looking north toward his mesa. It’s deceptive when you’re inside the smoke cloud looking out. Perspective is everything.

I harvested the last of the Katarina F1 cabbages when I watered this morning. Looking them up online I see that mine are just about perfect: they’re billed as “impeccably uniform, light green, 4 inch globes on compact plants” that mature in 45 days. I’m grateful I’ll know how to grow them next year, and how to thwart the grasshoppers.

Aside from stepping out a couple times to water plants and shake off demon grasshoppers I spent the day inside, still not getting things done. When I went out in the morning I wore a wet mask, and later in the day the oxygen as well. For lunch I enjoyed a sandwich with the last of the chicken half I didn’t freeze, smoked Gouda, Drunken Woman looseleaf lettuce from the garden, and coleslaw from the first of five perfect little cabbages; while reading Dottie, a novel by 2021 Nobel Laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah.

Zen wisdom: “When you’re eating, know that you’re eating. When you’re reading, know that you are reading. When you’re eating and reading, know that you are eating and reading.”
“I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.” Lao Tzu

Today’s daily guidance from the Mindful Life Community really spoke to me. This smoke roulette could go on all summer. Keeping patience and compassion alive is essential to a healthy perspective. It’s hard enough living with a biblical insect plague and apocalyptic wildfires. It could be so much worse: I could be an immigrant, or a pregnant teen in Texas, or a trans child almost anywhere in the country. May we all grow in compassion for ourselves, for each other, and for our precious planet.

A red ball sun well before sunset.

Inner Work

Jul12
Remember those waffles I froze awhile ago? One toasted, with organic almond butter and grape jelly, made a terrific breakfast.

There’s a question that’s been bugging me for nearly a decade. How is it that half of America looks at Donald Trump and doesn’t find him morally repellent? He lies, cheats, steals, betrays, and behaves cruelly and corruptly, and more than 70 million Americans find him, at the very least, morally acceptable….

Over the past 30 years, people have tried to fill the hole in their soul by seeking to derive a sense of righteousness through their political identities. And when you do that, politics begins to permeate everything and turns into a holy war in which compromise begins to seem like betrayal.”

David Brooks, The Atlantic

One of the fennel stalks getting ready to flower.

This incisive philosophical exploration of why some people like Drumpf traces the moral collapse of Western Civilization back to The Enlightenment. I’ve been spending too much of my attention budget on this question, but it’s helpful to read others exploring the origins and ramifications of current conditions. I’ve also been spending too much energy on wishful thinking, wishes like this bit of a ‘Prayer for the Resistance’ in Rob Brezny’s newsletter: “May the rich and powerful bullies perpetrating cruel violence be plagued by the consequences of their own actions, as their attempts to undermine empathy and democracy backfire spectacularly….” and other eloquent ill-wishes.

An early variety of cabbage I planted is tiny but ready! The grasshoppers figured it out a day before I did.

Perhaps a complementary article is this reflection from Mark Nepo on the Grateful Living website, about wonder and “finding the wisdom that lives in your heart.” There are two kinds of people in this world… which two kinds are always shifting for me, but there sure do seem to be a lot of aspects of human nature where polar opposites exist. I know, the last thing any of us needs to be doing is polar opposing people. I can’t help that I think about it, though.

A lettuce harvest gets a refreshing rinse from the sprinkler.

In a Saturday morning workshop with dharma teacher Martin Aylward, one of the takeaways was “I’m here to love.” At the end I thanked him for the teachings which validate a lot of the choices I’ve made in recent years, and said, “But I get stuck on ‘here to love,’ because I feel such rage and hatred toward the people making hateful, racist, cruel policies in the US.” I could have seen his answer coming, I know the teachings. He replied, gently, so compassionately, “So that is where you start, right there in your own heart, bringing love to your anger, your hatred which poisons only you, your tendency to demonize others.” A weight shrugged off my shoulders, my hand came involuntarily to my heart, tears to my eyes.

A spatchcock chicken roasted with potato and onion chunks will feed me for weeks.

In other inner work, our Grateful Gathering discussed this video Tuesday evening, which touched all of us deeply. Even more compelling, Ted Leach shared with us the next day some links to give more context on the life of Dot Fisher-Smith, whose wisdom and gratefulness shine through in the video. Talk about a paragon of inner work! And about the power of genuine compassion.

This is the earliest I’ve seen apricots ripen. There aren’t many, and they’re mostly out of reach, but they’re the largest the tree has ever produced.

In grasshopper plague mitigation, I’ve just signed up for this free webinar and recording from PPAN, People and Pollinators Action Network, in hopes of learning once and for all what strategies will work to save my yarden.

And in tadpole development, I remain mesmerized whenever I get a chance to visit the pond. It’s not far away, but with the air quality the past couple of days I haven’t been down there. We’ve only seen a couple of frogs in the past few weeks, and I was glad to catch one on the edge of the rushes the day before the fires. And welcome a lily blossom.

Speaking of the fires, the South Rim fire closed the day at 2500 acres, the Sowbelly at 2240, and the Deer Creek fire near the Utah border which also started yesterday blew up to 7000 acres within 24 hours. This exponential growth is sadly the new normal for wildfires. The smoke wasn’t as thick today due to less wind, and I was grateful for that though I still found it helpful to mask the few times I stepped outside. Grateful living has given me peace beyond the obvious. Where once I may have bemoaned the smoke and worried about its effects or potential duration, now I am simply grateful that it’s not worse: that the closer strikes were spotted and extinguished quickly, that these fires haven’t killed anyone, that the smoke isn’t denser, that my house protects me from most of it, that I’m slowly but surely taming my unruly mind, that every now and then a sliver of true compassion replaces my anger, and so on.

“Living gratefully is not something we aspire to one day. It is what we do. When we practice, this doing shapes who we are, who we are becoming, and the life we lead, transforming our way of being.”

— Joe Primo, grateful.org

Bluebirds

Jan7
The (western) bluebird of happiness sipped from my gutter today…

The new year’s first work week has begun for me, and I got almost everything on today’s agenda done. I paused to marvel at a flock of western bluebirds sipping meltwater in the gutter visible from the kitchen window. They seem to migrate through here in winter and don’t stay long, so this was a delightful treat, and confirmation of my guess at last night’s stocky little silhouette in the top of a juniper just after sunset. I’m grateful for the flicker of quiet joy this moment brought to a day of relative contentment. I’m grateful for the good work I get to do, and look forward to teaching another cohort of mindfulness students starting class this week.

Outside of Mirador, it was a momentous day, the fourth anniversary of the first coup attempt by a US president, and the day that now convicted felon was declared president again. As we enter this new regime, a little mindfulness can be helpful for our own inner peace, our outer peace, our relationships with family and community, and our overall wellbeing. If you’re interested in an introduction to daily mindfulness practice, I’ll also be cohosting a 28 Day Practice Circle through the Mindful Life Program. Here’s the link to learn what that’s about.

Some helpful (and mindful) tips for getting through the hard times ahead were recommended by R. Hubbell and can be found here. It’s telling, for me, that the second of the seventeen is to Cultivate Empathy. I’d take it the next step and say Cultivate Compassion. Empathy is a great thing, and as authors of this list G. Lakoff and G. Duran write, “One way authoritarians defeat democracy is by trying to destroy empathy. Their strategies depend on dehumanization, demonization, and division. One of the best ways to resist is to actively cultivate empathy. Do your best to understand other people’s feelings and perspectives. Empathy is a powerful antidote to fascism and hatred. Democracy depends on empathy – you can’t have democracy without it.”

But empathy speaks only to the ability to feel resonance with others’ emotions: Compassion adds the element of wanting to reduce their suffering. Speaking of which, it was excruciating to watch Kamala Harris read the results of the electoral college vote for president: I’ve been feeling compassion for her ever since November 5 knowing she’d have to do that today. Can you imagine? If you can, that’s empathy. If you feel moved to help reduce the suffering that will ensue from her necessary pronouncement, that’s compassion.

My own private bluebird of happiness, my little canyon Wren, is recovering well from an infection and has worn her donut of comfort without complaint off and on for a week. She’s just about ready to relinquish it completely.

Voting

Oct27

As I continue to recover well from surgery, gaining mobility and strength daily (with occasional half-steps backward) I’ve relied on Liberty puzzles for several hours a day to keep my spirits up. My new puzzle for the season is “Summer Swans,” a platter of vibrant eye candy whose whimsy soothed my soul for a few days when I could do little else. While I’m puzzling, I listen to dharma talks like the marvelous selection from Upaya Zen Center, and various other sources including Tricycle and Lion’s Roar. Thus exercising my brain with the puzzle and my practice as I listen, and getting up frequently to exercise my new hip. Many of the Upaya talks revolve around engaging with the world to improve conditions for all beings; starting, of course, with bringing the best of ourselves into each day through practicing things like generosity, ethics, patience, wisdom, compassion, and kindness.

Spending hours each day in contemplation and practice of these many facets of living mindfully, I can forget for minutes at a time that there are people in this country who see the world through completely different lenses. The three poisons of Greed, Hatred, and Delusion are surging through the veins and arteries of the American people these days like never before, under the insidious influence of a madman. What has happened to the Republican Party of my parents, my grandparents, Abraham Lincoln, hell even Ronald Reagan? What has happened to the ideal of “Duty, Honor, Country” that motivated my father and great-grandfather as graduates of West Point and career Army officers?

An old friend asked me tonight how she could talk compassionately with her sister about voting. Like an unfathomable number of women, the sister plans to vote how her husband tells her to, which in this case is most definitely not in her own interest as a woman, nor in the interest of her daughter of reproductive age. It was good timing to make me to share a couple of links that another friend sent the other day, after telling me of her stealth sticky-note plan for her road trip this weekend. She’ll be sticking post-its on women’s restroom mirrors and stall doors all the way from northern Virginia to southern Tennessee, on which she wrote short messages like, “We didn’t get the right to vote, we fought for it. Fight now!” and “Your vote is secret – he’ll never know – vote for your rights!” and simply, “Vote for your daughters – vote for Harris/Walz.”

One could add to those notes, “Vote for Nature – vote Democrat down the ballot!”

I hadn’t heard of this grassroots effort that some woman, somewhere, started a couple of months ago and many other women quickly got on board. My friend sent an article in Ms. Magazine and another on NBC describing this women-to-women movement that reminds women they can vote “freely and privately regardless of the political beliefs of their spouse or partner.” In addition to restrooms, women are putting the notes discretely on shelf items like tampon boxes. An 81-year-old woman interviewed said she is posting them everywhere “to atone for the fact that I voted for Trump in 2016.” This is just one of many grassroots people-to-people efforts that give me hope that our democracy will not fall to the fascist regime promised by the violent insurrectionist former president, and outlined in Project 2025. Read more about this proposed decimation of our rights here.

I need to confess a personal failure. I was inspired by our local Indivisible chapter zoom to take a one-hour phone bank training to get out the vote for the Democrats. I was impressed with the training, and girded my loins to do the 15-minute call session included in it. But I have been unable to rise to the moment and connect into the Anytime call center again. Each day I intend to buck up and do it, and each day comes to an end without my having done it. In a past life I sold underwriting for public radio, a cause I still deeply believe in, and if I got one harsh no, I drove home and curled up in bed for the rest of the day. I’m afraid I’m constitutionally unfit to make cold calls to engage reluctant or even hostile people in conversation even about the urgency of keeping a dangerous criminal out of the White House, despite some remarkable inspiration to do so.

But I am able to have mindful conversations with friends about ways to keep calm, stay strong, get engaged, participate in being good stewards of this fragile spinning globe we get to live on for a short time; I’m able to offer guidance to those who ask even as I continually learn how to navigate this increasingly challenging world we are passing through. There’s not much we can control. But we can control where we place our attention, how we bring our values into our thoughts, speech, and actions, and how clearly we are willing to see reality. And we can choose to practice gratitude, meet suffering with compassion wherever we encounter it, and engage in life with an open heart. Even when it’s hard, even when we can do nothing else. And we can vote for people who truly reflect the universal spiritual values taught by Jesus, Buddha, and many others; not for people who twist and distort for personal power.

I’m grateful that women and their supporters fought for the right to vote and won it barely a hundred years ago; and grateful that I got to vote this week in support of basic human rights for all Americans. I hope that you also will vote for the decent candidate for President, Kamala Harris, and not for the candidate who is the first president in US history to refuse the peaceful transfer of power, who is a convicted felon and sexual predator, and the only presidential candidate ever to openly admire Hitler. Remember, your vote is confidential and anonymous.

Green Burials

Jul7

We buried our dear friend this morning, in a hand-dug grave in a beautiful spot on private land. I’m grateful that green burials are legal (if more complicated than they need to be) in our county. I’m grateful (for so many reasons) that dear friends are choosing them. I’m grateful for capable and compassionate friends to carry them out. I’m grateful I could be of service today.

A Quiet Week

Mar24

It’s been a quiet week at Mirador, though one of endless interest and rich experience. It’s been a balancing act to hold all the simple fullness of every day at the same time as fatigue, both physical and emotional. But we’re up to the challenge! There’s been enough in my energy budget every day (except Friday) to get some fulfilling work done, enjoy the forest and the yarden, and share meaningful connection with friends and neighbors.

Wren always has plenty of energy. It’s a joy to wake to her enthusiasm for each day, and participate in her boundless curiosity. We enjoyed our first walk to the rim in a long time, appreciating the ice, a vivid young piñon sprout, and the first burst of Indian Paintbrush from the desert soil.

In the garden proper, at least a few rows of greens are thriving, though whether the carrots and beets will sprout remains to be seen. I’m grateful for the success of this experimental New Year’s planting, and gradually exposing the greens to unfiltered sunlight and precipitation, while still pulling their blanket over them most nights. This afternoon a couple of slow, melting inches of snow fell, enough to give them good moisture before I covered them in anticipation of a cold overnight. The hardy tulips are thriving.

We were able to enjoy a few nice meditations outside, with the cheerful songs of house finches, and inquisitive squawks and chips of northern flickers and mountain bluebirds. There’s a sense of sadness and loss, as I realize that bird songs are fewer than they used to be; and a sense of longing to be where there are more birds both in number and diversity.

I’m grateful for another successful loaf of bread, which I was able to share with a friend passing through town. In this loaf I mixed some dried tarragon, which gives it just a hint of herbal flavor. Above, after the overnight rise, silky and malleable…

… until the third fold out of the bowl, when the dough strengthens enough to resist the pull of hands, and shapes into a firm ball after the fourth fold. Ninety minutes later, it’s increased in size and smoothed its surface, all through the alchemy of microorganisms.

After the first twenty minutes in the Dutch oven at 450℉, I removed the lid to allow for continued expansion, resulting in another gorgeous loaf. Life’s simple pleasures. Throughout the week, the awareness of mortality has been front and center, as I taught a unit on Identity and Transformation, shared in gratitude for our friend’s miraculous survival, reckoned with my own attitude toward my body, and heard from cousins about their mother’s interment at Arlington National Cemetery. I was especially grateful during our monthly zoom this afternoon to learn more about my maternal grandfather, who was persona non grata as I grew up. I knew only two things about him: he was a dangerous drunk, and my mother was terrified of him. Her brother’s children were raised with a lot more information, which they shared with her sister’s daughter and me this afternoon; the first time either of us had heard more than a few words about him. Our grandmother never spoke of him to us, nor did our mothers.

Our male cousins were able to shed a new perspective on the silence. They had been raised to respect him, by hearing about his military accomplishments; and they knew some horrific things that befell him during World War I, which opened my heart with compassion in retrospect. How wonderful to receive this gift of perspective and some healing of generational trauma. Yes, he was scary and drunken as our mothers grew up; and though his wife loved him, she divorced him to protect the family. He suffered from PTSD long before it was named, back when it was called shellshocked. We learned today that not only had he been gassed, he’d been left for dead in a pile of bodies. When they went to move his corpse, he groaned, and was taken for medical attention. They had already cut his initials into his big toe to identify the body. Jesus. What we’re capable of, then and now. Not that much has changed in human aggression, except for scale and technology. I’m grateful for every peaceful day in my life, for every quiet week.

Face Poison

Jan11
  • Day 9… beginning to show some results
  • Day 10… starting to itch
  • Day 12… beginning to sting
  • Day 18… pretty uncomfortable
  • Day 19… how much pain is too much pain?
  • Day 22… one day after I stop applying cream
  • Day 23… face swells more
  • Day 24… my nose and cheeks hurt like a bruise
  • Day 25… Day 1 of antibiotics
  • Day 26… morning after Claritin
  • Day 29… last day of antibiotics
  • Day 31… still feeling creepy crawlies
  • Day 35… no more peeling, no more itching, no more creepy crawlies

I’m grateful for science, and medicine. I’m grateful for my experiment with face poison, aka flourouracil, a topical chemotherapy for precancerous actinic keratoses and some basal cell carcinomas. I was instructed to apply this cream twice a day for 30 days, with the caveat that if it hurt unbearably after two or three weeks I could stop. “If it hurts bearably, you can take a couple of days off and then finish out the course.”

I’m grateful I had friends who’d been through it to offer support. I debated whether to share photos of my face here, partly out of vanity and partly because some of them are pretty harsh. But I have heard of several people intending to undergo the same treatment this month, and I know there are others out there, so I offer the gallery above and words below with humility in hope of benefiting fellow sufferers.

The first week there wasn’t much sensation with the cream, just a sense of skin tightening, like a chemical facelift. Into the second week red spots started appearing and soon my face itched, and then began to sting. I started to apply vaseline and Aquaphor ointment between morning and evening applications of face poison. After awhile this didn’t do much to diminish the hot, tender feeling. It hurt to apply the cream, it hurt to apply the vaseline, it hurt if it dried out, it hurt to wash off vaseline. But it didn’t hurt unbearably. At the end of week two, I began to wonder, How much hurt is too much?

Because the effects were incremental, my tolerance increased incrementally. It was a classic case of the mythical frog in a pot of water. I learned that as a true thing, that if you put a frog in a pot of water and slowly bring it to boil, the frog won’t jump out because it adapts to the incremental heat increase until it’s too late, and it gets boiled alive; if you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water it will instantly jump out. I hated whoever did that experiment. Years later I heard it was just apocryphal, which was a relief, but also knocked the legs out from under a beautiful allegory: one that nonetheless that applies to my face and my perception of reality as I continued to gradually increase the amount of poison in my system. My awareness tunneled into darkness as a fever developed, but I didn’t notice.

I took a day off at three weeks, and the next morning my cheeks were swelling, so I took another day off. I wondered if I should start the cream again. The following morning, my cheeks and nose were sore deep in the tissue. I called the dermatology office, and they said, “If it’s swelling, we recommend you stop.” The next day, it was so bad that my cousin doctor suggested I might be getting cellulitis and could need an antibiotic. I’m grateful that the office had an on-call doctor on a Saturday evening, and that I happened to have some leftover antibiotics to start before I could get my prescription the next day. I’m grateful the pharmacy was open on Sunday morning.

All in all, I’m grateful I tried this process, and my skin overall is more smooth and clear of flaky patches and keratoses. There are a few spots I think could have benefited from another week of face poison, but maybe my doctor was right all along when he said he thought it would be easier for me to just get a few things frozen off every six months, and a Mohs surgery now and then. I’m grateful for my dermatologist; but I’d gotten fed up after my August visit where he biopsied three spots, froze two, and would have done more if he’d had time. I ended up with two Mohs surgeries in the fall, and those are uncomfortable and disruptive in their own way. I hope that the face poison has bought me a few years free of freezing and Mohs, but we’ll know more later.

Meanwhile, I’m grateful it’s over, and I can wash my face with hot water again, and scrub it with a washcloth, and moisturize with cream that doesn’t stick to everything and line the sink with vaseline slime and grease my pillow so my face slides off. I’m grateful I can put on sunscreen and walk outside without feeling like a vampire at risk of sizzling in sunlight. I’m grateful for the kindness, curiosity, compassion, and humor my friends provided throughout this experiment with face poison.

Perseverance

Dec24
Wren, by popular demand. She’s cleaning the pot I cooked her latest batch of food in. And what a good job she’s doing!

I’m grateful for so much today. For friends reaching out or responding… for the desperately compassionate work of people like Robert Hubbell and John Pavlovitz among so many others who are trying to help us navigate these dark global days and darker nights. Honestly, it’s hard for me to get done in a day the few things I want to get done, and not because I’m overwhelmed with holiday festivities.

But I’m grateful I did manage to get bread baked today, and what a perfect loaf it was. I’m grateful for all the usual things; and grateful for incrementally longer days, and only two months or less until I can be gardening again. I’m grateful a lost cat I don’t even know returned home safely after weeks away. I’m grateful I’ve learned an antidote for empathy fatigue, and that is compassion. I’m grateful friends are healing well from injuries and surgeries, and grateful they have good medical care. I’m grateful I have backup internet access. I’m grateful my puppy, though her eye condition fluctuates, is healthy in all other ways. I’m grateful that daily exercise with my cousin seems to be keeping physical pain at bay these days.

And I’m grateful for perseverance. I set myself a monthly deadline to publish a podcast, and I’ve failed to meet it as often as I’ve succeeded. I’m more than a month overdue this time, but I’m grateful today that I finally managed to overcome inertia, to write and release episode 8 of ‘Suffer Less with Mindfulness,’ available now on your favorite podcast site. This episode is called Letting Go is a Diamond. Check it out when you’re somewhere you can get still and meditate for half an hour.

And of course I’m grateful for the cheese sandwich, after days without one. Today’s iteration: smoked gouda, avocado, lettuce, shiitake ‘bacon,’ and requisite mayo and Penzeys sandwich sprinkle. Each sandwich, each moment, unique.

Empathy

Dec14

My intention today was Patience, because I had to take Wren to the vet forty-five minutes away. Monday morning she was fine, but after she’d been in the sunroom awhile, where she likes to lie in the windowsill, and also roll on the rug, she came back to the living room with her brown eye squinted shut and weeping. When I gently prised it open, it didn’t look bloody, or swollen, and I didn’t see any foreign object in it. So I watched it. On Tuesday, it was no better, so I called and made an appointment for today. Yesterday it was no better, but no worse, and this morning she seemed to be opening it just a little bit more often. Clearly it was still uncomfortable, so down to Delta we drove.

Where’s Wren?

We waited calmly together in the same room we had last time. I was calm because of mindful intention, and she was calm because I had carefully doped her up a few hours before, so that she might not freak out as she did last time. She trembled when we first arrived, but because we had a nice long wait, she calmed down by the time the skilled tech came in. I offered her some treats to offer Wren, and she sat down beside us and showed me a trick that worked like a charm: she held my hand and offered it to Wren to sniff, quickly rotated our hands to put hers in front of Wren’s nose, and back and forth a few times before we exchanged treats. It was fascinating to watch Wren’s subtle resistance to D’s hand dissipate, and her fear of taking a treat from a strange hand melt away. Then D slipped a lead on her, gathered her up, and carried her off.

I was grateful all happened before the tragic wailing commenced in the next room over. The walls are thin, and the doors loose sliders. I was already feeling empathy for the man in the room west of me, who had carried his dog in and laid him on blankets, as the tech asked how long the dog had been unable to walk, and heard that he’d been having seizures. I thought of Stellar’s last few days, and could relate to his distress. I’m grateful for empathy. And then, a woman in the room on the other side suddenly wailed and began to sob. There is only one thing that causes that sound in a vet’s office.

I knew she had just received word that her dog would have to be euthanized. I became very still, and allowed her weeping to hold my attention. I let her pain wash through me as I relived that trip home from the vet two years ago when I wailed for twenty miles over the body of my beloved Stellar. I felt the empathy that I imagine my friends in the front of the van felt for me then. I heard her use my very words, my best boy, as her keening waned. There were murmurs from others in the room, and earnest explanations that I couldn’t discern, and her sobs rose again. My chest swelled and emotion rippled through me, down my arms, and out my hands. My eyes filled, and a tear overflowed. All the while, I held her pain, knowing she would never know, but nevertheless sending compassion out toward her, and toward the man on the other side. How helplessly we love our dogs.

Soon, it was over. It was suggested that they sedate Wren because she wouldn’t let them dye her eye to see if there was a scratch, and if there was she’d need a temporary stitch in her third eyelid (that membrane that slides up from the inside corner when they blink), after which I’d have to give her antibiotic drops twice a day for a week. I asked if I could skip straight to the drops and see if that solved it. I wanted both of us out of there. It had already been a long day. If the drops don’t help, I’ll bring her back in a week, in the morning before their day is complicated by an overtime surgery and at least one emergency euthanasia.

As we were checking out, Dr. Natalie walked by and smiled at us. “Little Monster,” she said. I assume she meant it in the Lady Gaga term-of-endearment way. I asked her to pause and give my little monster a few treats, and she kindly did so. We stopped for a milkshake on the way home and she got the whipped cream. She fought the first application of drops, but allowed the second more readily. I think they’re already helping.